The Howie Mandel Show was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television variety show

Variety show

A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...

 hosted by comedian Howie Mandel

Howie Mandel

Howard Michael "Howie" Mandel is a Canadian stand-up comedian, television host, and actor. He is well known as host of the NBC game show Deal or No Deal, as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. Before his career as a game show host, Mandel was best known for his role on...

. The series was launched in daytime syndication in spring 1998 and ran for approximately a year before it was canceled in April 1999.

Background

The Howie Mandel Show was taped at NBC Studios

NBC Studios

The NBC Studios in New York, New York is located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the historic GE Building houses the headquarters of the NBC television network, its parent General Electric, and NBC's flagship station WNBC , as well as cable news channel MSNBC.When NBC Universal relocated,...

 in Burbank. The show recorded in Studio 1, which was the same studio Johnny Carson

Johnny Carson

John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...

 taped The Tonight Show in. Paramount Domestic Television

Paramount Domestic Television

Paramount Domestic Television was the television distribution arm of American television production company Paramount Television, once the TV arm of Paramount Pictures...

 served as distributor.

Mandel's show had an in studio band led by Steve Goldstein, referred to on air as the Studio One Band. Mandel would often banter with Goldstein during the opening to the show, which always consisted of a brief monologue by the host. Two celebrities were usually featured along with a musical guest.

Mandel's first guest was Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...

. Jay Leno

Jay Leno

James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...

 also appeared on the premiere to wish Mandel luck.

The program also featured up and comers as musical acts. For instance, a young Britney Spears made her first performance appearance on Mandel's show in early 1999.

Despite all this, the show never drew well in the ratings and Paramount pulled the plug after almost a year.

One of the show's recurring segments has lived on since its cancellation. Mandel would often take hidden cameras with him wherever he would go, and those segments eventually led to a recurring Tonight Show spot called "Hidden Howie" and the TV series Howie Do It

Howie Do It

Howie Do It is a Canadian/American comedy television series, co-commissioned by Global and NBC, that stars Howie Mandel. The series features practical jokes in the vein of earlier shows like Just for Laughs, Punk'd or Candid Camera – the supposed twist being that the cameras are in the open,...

.